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New York Times journalist slams Australia’s 'quasi-prisons' on Manus Island and Nauru

A New York Times journalist who visited the Manus Island and Nauru detention centres has criticised the Australian government for running “island prisons” that he says do little more than damage the physical and mental wellbeing of refugees.

International affairs and diplomacy reporter Roger Cohen visited Manus’ main town Lorengau after being unable to gain a press visa, and labelled the regime of offshore processing as a “sustained, sinister [and] surreal exercise in cruelty” in an piece titled “Broken Men in Paradise”, published on Friday.

He compared Immigration Minister Peter Dutton to Australia’s “own little Trump”, whose “soft bigotry” had the power to sway elections.

Cohen criticised the lack of communication between inhabitants of Manus and asylum seekers, and the Australian government over the “money-for-migrants deal”.

“There should have been explanatory sessions with the local authorities, clarity over who was running facilities, zero detention and an Australian-led regional effort to secure a decent life for the refugees. None of this occurred,” Cohen wrote.

The journalist spoke to a number of refugees who detailed their ordeals on the camps, including Benham Satah, a Kurd who fled from Iran who told him: “sometimes I cut myself… so that I can see my blood and remember, ‘Oh yes! I am alive.’”

He said the Turnbull government’s deal with the US to take a portion of refugees, prioritising children and women, needed to be followed through, and that Australia needs to recognise “it has incurred a moral debt to the myriad people it has mistreated on the islands”.

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“Allow those who do not go to the United States to build a decent life in Australia. Make the ‘transitory persons’ already in Australia permanent residents. Close this foul chapter that stains Australia and echoes the darkest moments in its history,” Cohen wrote.

It is unclear whether the US-Australia deal, struck with outgoing President Barack Obama’s administration, will proceed under President-elect Donald Trump.